


you gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger

by thekaidonovskys



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Mild Blood, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2029962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekaidonovskys/pseuds/thekaidonovskys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And that’s the worst thing, Newt, I don’t know. I don’t know why they don’t like me. They just… don’t. I thought it was just dislike, too, but if they - if they think that lowly of me that I’m worth this kind of treatment, then what the hell have I done wrong?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted by Tumblr user thekaidonovskys

When Newt wanders up to a group of techs on the floor and innocently enquires if they know where Tendo is, he certainly doesn’t expect three guilty expressions and a sudden backing away from everybody in the vicinity.

“Yeah, Tomas,” someone calls out. “Where  _is_ Tendo.”

Newt’s not a big guy, and this Tomas is pretty damn large. He doesn’t give a shit right now. Something has clearly gone down here, and Newt’s suddenly more than a little afraid for his friend.

“I believe I asked you where Tendo is,” Newt says, getting right up close. “I also believe it would be in your best interests to tell me  _right now_.”

He doesn’t even have to threaten to use Kaiju Blue - a pity, really. “Headed to his room,” Tomas says sulkily. “A few minutes ago. You’ll catch him easily at the rate he’s going.”

Newt doesn’t reply - he’s afraid if he does, he might start throwing punches instead and that’d  _really_ not go down well. Instead he spins and breaks into a jog, headed towards the floor of sleeping quarters that Tendo lives on.

He nearly runs right into him on his way, and skids to a halt. Tendo doesn’t seem to notice, slowly making his way down the hall. He’s got one arm wrapped around his ribs, the other hanging loosely at his side. Newt can see blood on his hand. 

“Tendo?” he asks. 

Tendo freezes, then catches himself on the wall with his free hand. “Not now, Newt,” he says without turning around. “Need some time to myself.”

“You need a medic,” Newt says and steps around so he can see Tendo’s face - which he immediately wishes he hadn’t. “Oh my god,  _Tendo._ ”

Tendo ducks his head. It doesn’t hide the already swelling bruise around his eye, or the blood still dripping from his nose and a scrape on his cheek. His hair is a mess, his clothes filthy, and he’s limping. And the way he’s holding his ribs is seriously worrying. “Don’t,” he says, and his voice cracks.  “Please.”

“I can’t just… you’re hurt. You’ve gotta see someone -“

“No,” Tendo says, his voice slightly too loud, too high. “No, I can’t, I’ll be okay, I just need to… to lie down.”

Newt shakes his head, but there’s a rising panic in Tendo’s eyes that he can’t ignore. “You got a first aid kit in your room?” he asks, and Tendo nods. “Alright. I’m coming back with you. We’ll get you cleaned up, see how bad the damage is, and then make a decision from there.”

“Okay,” Tendo says, and he sounds far too close to crying for Newt’s heart to handle.

“Which side hurts?” Newt asks, and when Tendo indicates the left, Newt steps over to his right side and gently slides his arm around him, allowing Tendo to lean into him. “I’m not gonna ask,” he says as they slowly head towards Tendo’s door. “Not yet, anyway. But I know who did it and I know how to make all the right noises to get someone kicked out of here without actually making it public what happened. Bear that in mind.”

Because he wants to ask, badly, but Tendo is clearly so fragile right now that Newt knows it wouldn’t go down well. So Newt’s gonna fix the outside, as much as he can anyway, before trying to get to the heart. 

He gets Tendo’s door open and helps him across the room, sitting him down on his bed. Newt goes back to shut the door, then into the bathroom to dig out the first aid kit, painkillers, water, and a washcloth. “You don’t have to do this -“ Tendo begins halfheartedly.

“If you think I’m gonna dump you here, bleeding and bruised, and disappear, you don’t know me,” Newt informs him as he pulls over Tendo’s desk chair and sits down across from Tendo, popping open the first aid kit and pulling out a pair of gloves. “Let me take a look. Gonna have to touch you a bit, is that okay?”

“Yeah. I know you won’t hurt me.”

“Might a little bit,” Newt warns as he snaps on the gloves and gently cups Tendo’s chin, his other hand moving through his hair, pressing down lightly. “Open wounds to be cleaned up. Did you hit your head at all?”

“Slightly, when I hit the ground. Didn’t black out or anything.”

“Good,” Newt says, and adds that snippet of information to the mental picture he’s slowly building of events. “I can’t feel any bumps, and I don’t think you’ve got a concussion. Eyesight okay? No stars or blurriness?”

“Nope.”

“Excellent. Now then…”

There’s silence for awhile as Newt painstakingly examines the swelling around Tendo’s eye, the scrape on his cheek and his nose. There’s no fractures or breaks, thank god, but it’s gonna be a nasty black eye in the morning. Newt snaps a cold pack to life and hands it to Tendo with instructions to hold it to his eye as he cleans up the blood from his face. The cut is shallow and easily bandaged, and his nose has stopped bleeding too. 

“So far so good,” Newt says. “Now; ribs?”

Tendo nods. “Got kicked. Felt something give.”

Newt winces a little. “Was it like a snap?”

“Sort of. Didn’t actually pop out though.”

That’s a good sign - any indication of a flail segment and Newt would be calling in medics immediately. “Okay,” he says and shifts back a little, gently pressing his hand to Tendo’s ribcage. “I’m going to need you to do something painful for me; take a deep breath.”

Tendo does, though it’s clearly painful. Newt holds his hand steady, relieved that there’s no bone jutting out, and winces again in sympathy as Tendo lets the breath out through his teeth. “Broken?” he asks.

“Afraid so. The best kind, though.”

“Well that makes me feel fucking fantastic. I’m so glad I got the  _best_ kind of broken rib.”

Newt doesn’t react. “Painkillers, ice pack, light duties, and trying to breathe normally,” he says. “Three to six weeks healing time. Anything feels like it’s wrong, bones out of place or more pain than usual, you tell someone straight away.”

Tendo nods, now quiet and a little abashed. “Okay.”

Newt gives him a small reassuring smile. “Leg?”

“Ankle. Twisted, I think.”

Newt slides off the chair and carefully feels around the bone. “No swelling,” he says. “Ice that too I think, just to be safe.” He rummages in the first aid kit, comes up with one other cold pack, and hands it to Tendo as he stands. “Stick that one on your ribs. I’ll go grab one from our lab kit and let Hermann know I’ll be out for awhile.”

“What are you gonna tell him?”

“What do you want me to tell him?”

Tendo shrugs. He’s hunched into himself, ice packs over his eye and ribs, and everything about him is so small and  _broken_ that Newt kinda wants to cry. “I guess I don’t mind if you let him know,” he says. “He’ll think you’re just slacking off otherwise.”

“Hermann always thinks I’m slacking off,” Newt says, and grabs Tendo’s passkey from his desk. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He jogs to the lab and, of course, is met with one of Hermann’s dour looks. “You said you’d only be five minutes and then you would  _immediately_ return to clean up… what are you doing with that?”

Newt pulls the cold pack out of his first aid kit and turns around. “Tendo’s hurt,” he says.

“Tendo? What happened? Does he need to visit medical?”

“No. Well, yes, yes he fucking does, but he won’t. He… he got beat up. And if I don’t look after him, nobody else will and I might not make it back for awhile but I can’t just leave him there on his own -“

“Go,” Hermann says softly. “I’ll cover for you. Send him my best.”

If Newt had time, and if Hermann would let him, Newt would hug him. Instead he just settles for a hopefully grateful enough nod, and hightails it back to Tendo’s room. 

Tendo hasn’t moved when he gets back, and Newt helps shift him so he’s resting back against the headboard in as comfortable a position for his ribs as possible. He puts the ice pack to his ankle then sits back on the chair, where Tendo catches his eye. “How do I look?” he asks dryly. 

“Stunning.”

Tendo snorts a laugh. “Cool, man, thanks. Always knew black and blue were my best colours.”

And that’s a little too painful of a joke, so Newt doesn’t reply and Tendo closes his eyes and still looks so damn small and Newt just doesn’t know what to do next. 

So he just waits it out, with the knowledge that if Tendo’s gonna open up to anybody around here, it’ll be Newt. 

After awhile, when all the cold packs have mostly melted, Newt takes them all away and gives Tendo another once-over. “As much as I’d like you to get a professional opinion,” he says reluctantly, “I guess you’re gonna be okay. But you’ve  _got_ to take it easy. Have a couple of days off at the very least.”

“But how?”

“Let the Marshal know you’re injured -“

“ _Not_ going to happen.”

Newt stops. “Why?” he asks. That was a pretty vehement response after all.

Tendo doesn’t reply, just looks down at his hands.

“Tendo,” Newt says patiently. “I’m on your side. If you need me to lie to Stacker and tell him you’re sick or something, I can do that instead. But I need to know what’s going on here - it’s not like you’re gonna get in trouble for fighting, the other guy didn’t have a scratch on him. So what are you afraid of?”

A long moment passes before Tendo replies. “I should’ve stopped it,” he says quietly. “It’s my job to diffuse things like that, to get people to calm down and walk it off, and I couldn’t. We can’t afford to lose any of the techs and if it gets out that there’s tension on the floor then it’s gonna fall on my shoulders.”

“It already fell on your shoulders. And your ribs.” Newt sighs. “Tell me what happened. Why’d he beat you up?”

“Doesn’t like me.”

“That’s it?” 

“What other excuse does he need? He’s bigger than me and didn’t like that I was telling him what to do and I don’t think he actually meant to… he tried to grab me, I got out of the way so he swung at me instead, don’t think he meant for it to connect but it did. And when I was on the ground, he’d drawn a crowd and it was just mob mentality - as soon as he’d landed a kick, he stopped.”

“That was all it took,” Newt points out, tallying the story up. It accounts for nearly all of the injuries - Tendo must’ve rolled his ankle when he fell. “How’d you get this, though,” he asks, carefully cupping Tendo’s chin again and brushing his thumb under the scrape. “That’s dangerously close to your eye.”

“Scraped it against the floor.”

Newt nods. “Alright. So basically someone took insult and took it out on you. You know that’s happening all the time, right? We’re too close to the end of the war, tempers and tension are flying high.”

“I know.”

“So does Stacker. You really think he’s gonna be cross with you? You think he’ll blame you for this?”

Tendo shrugs. Then, quiet enough that Newt barely catches it: “Man with my kind of past attracts trouble.”

Newt sighs. “I should’ve known,” he says. “Do you know how many of the guys have prison records, Tendo? I’m guessing a lot. You’re not some kind of pariah because you got in trouble when you were younger.”

“They don’t have Commander on their name badges.”

“And you didn’t take a swing at this guy,” Newt counters. 

“I should’ve stopped it. Stacker trusts me to handle them and I failed.”

“And if that were the case, don’t you think you’ve been punished enough? You’re the victim here.”

He sees Tendo swallow hard, and his next sentence is very quiet. “Maybe I deserved it.”

“Oh no, no you don’t,” Newt says immediately. “What on earth could you have done to deserve  _this_?”

He gestures to Tendo’s face, and sees a tear slip from his undamaged eye. “I don’t know,” Tendo says. “And that’s the worst thing, Newt, I  _don’t know._ I don’t know why they don’t like me. They just…  _don’t_. I thought it was just dislike, too, but if they - if they think that lowly of me that I’m worth this kind of treatment, then what the hell have I done wrong?”

And that’s what finally does it. Tendo curls into himself, shaking hard, and begins to cry. 

Newt makes every movement very deliberate as he sits next to him, slowly putting an arm around his shoulders. Tendo doesn’t flinch away, so Newt scoops him right up, over into his lap, and holds him as tight as he can manage without causing further injury. Tendo’s arms are around his neck, face hidden in his shoulder, and he’s sobbing hard enough that Newt’s afraid of him actually popping out that rib bone. But he knows Tendo needs this, so he stays still and quiet and tries not to plot revenge. As much as he’d love to contaminate the water supply leading to that guy’s shower, Newt needs to make life easier for Tendo, not harder. 

So he waits it out while Tendo works through the worst of the tears, then gently presses his hand to Tendo’s side to make sure his rib is still okay. “Sorry,” he says when Tendo hisses at the pain. “Just checking in. And, for the record, you haven’t done anything wrong. If people dislike you, well fuck them. Except, um. Maybe not  _fuck_ them - I know that’s your method for handling most people but that might not help in this case.”

Tendo chuckles. “He’s so not my type,” he says, his voice still watery. “I’m okay with not being liked, anyway. I’ve got you and Herc for friends, Hermann, to a degree -“

“As much as anybody has Hermann as a friend.”

“True that. I’m cool with all the pilots and it’s not  _all_ the techs who hate me, or else my bed would be a very cold place. There’s just some of them, a group of guys who seem to detest me -“

“Have you ever thought they might be jealous?”

Tendo scoffs. “Big guys like them? Why the hell would they be jealous of me?”

“Well maybe because you’re  _cool with all the pilots_ and your bed is  _far_ from a cold place. You’re friends with all the ‘heroes’ and you’re in charge of everybody down on that floor and I reckon a lot of those guys down there are wannabe pilots too. You’re as close as it gets to being in the action without being in a Jaeger, and they want what you’ve got.”

“You reckon?”

“It seems likely. You’ve got a pretty swell job - well, until shit like this happens. But you’re respected by just about everybody, and with good reason. You do good work, you’re an awesome guy and, if nothing else, there’s the fact that you have a  _roster_ for sex.”

Tendo laughs, then pulls back so he can wipe his eyes. Newt smiles, even as he takes in the dark bruising around Tendo’s eye. “I did say I could hook you up,” he reminds Newt.

“I don’t have time, man.” And it’s not his primary reason, but they both know his primary reason anyway. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to invade. Now, what are we gonna do about you?”

“About me?”

“Yeah. You can’t go to work like this - you’re not gonna be able to see out of that eye properly for a few days, and that rib will make everything hell. But if you’re staying in bed, Stacker needs to know what’s going on… or he needs to be lied to. And I know I said I’d lie to him but I’m really not all that comfortable with it.”

Tendo nods. “I know. You… you really don’t think he’ll be cross?”

“Not a chance. I’ll be cross with  _him_ if he is. You haven’t done anything wrong, Tendo.”

Tendo looks at him for a minute. “Okay,” he says finally. “You gonna bring him here?”

“Yeah. He’d better have a look at you.”

“Suppose so. Before you go, can I… have another hug?”

Newt smiles. “Of course you can,” he says, and wraps Tendo up in his arms again. He’s used to hugging Tendo - they’re both extremely tactile, it’s only natural that they find comfort in one another - and while the circumstances are awful, at least this is familiar. “I’m gonna go grab Stacker now, okay?” he says after a minute. 

Tendo nods. Newt lets him go and helps settle him back in to bed, smoothing his hair back and checking on his eye one more time, which thankfully seems to have stopped swelling. He can’t resist kissing his forehead too, eliciting a smile from Tendo. “If you weren’t so madly in love with your lab partner, I’d date you in a heartbeat,” he says.

Newt smiles. “If you didn’t have your harem to rule over, I’d let you.”

He leaves Tendo chuckling and heads off in search of someone who can deliver him to the Marshal.

***

Twenty minutes later finds Newt hovering at the end of the bed, watching as Stacker sits himself down next to Tendo and surveys him. “Doctor Geiszler,” he asks without looking away, “do you know how Doctor Gottlieb’s numbers are looking?”

“I think the next predicted attack is still a couple weeks away.”

Stacker nods. “Good. I can confine you to bed rest.” He shakes his head at Tendo’s protestation, silencing it almost immediately. “Be glad I’m not making you spend the time in the medical bay, Tendo - Newt told me about your rib. Now; who did this to you?”

“What makes you think -“

“What, you think I’d presume you got in a fight? I know you better than that.”

Quietly and unemotionally, Tendo relates the story. “Do I have to give you his name?” he says once he’s finished. “I don’t think he’ll cause any more trouble.”

Stacker does something a little unprecedented then - he turns to Newt. “What do you think? Do you know who did it, and are they likely to repeat this?”

“Yeah, I know them. I’d trust Tendo’s judgement, but I’d also keep a close eye on things. On the floor in general.” Newt suddenly snaps his fingers. “Hey, Aleksis said to me he’s interested in seeing more of the mechanics. You could send him around with Tendo when he returns to duty.”

Tendo chuckles a little. “Oh yeah, that’d do it. But I’ll be okay, sir. I think word will have gotten out that you’re here - they’ll know not to mess with me again.”

“I certainly hope so.” Stacker looks at him again, and Newt knows he’s taking in not only the visible damage, but also how small Tendo seems like this. “By your report, it sounds like you behaved in an exemplary manner. I am sorry you suffered for it, and that you felt you had no option but to take it.”

“There wasn’t much else I could do -“

“Could’ve taken a swing at him.” Newt and Tendo both blink at Stacker, who smiles slightly. “I know you wouldn’t. But you wouldn’t have been blamed for it if you had. Don’t hold yourself to some unattainable standard, Tendo.”

“Oh,” Tendo says quietly. “I - um…”

Stacker puts a hand on his shoulder, then stands. “Doctor Geiszler,” he says, slight emphasis on the  _doctor._ “Can I trust you to keep an eye on his recovery and alert the medical staff, and myself, if anything appears to be wrong?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. Then I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow, Tendo, and I’ll arrange to have your meals sent here for the next week. And rest assured - this will not happen again.”

Stacker departs on that note. He’s good at departing on strong notes. “There you go,” Newt says. “A week’s vacation, and nobody’s cross with you. I can play nursemaid - as much as I can, anyway. Could always roster Hermann on to cover things when I need to be at work.”

“You think  _Hermann_ would play nursemaid?”

Newt chuckles. “Dude, I detest anything hospital-like, and I’m also way too clumsy. Hermann patches me up any time I get injured -“

“Married,” Tendo mutters under his breath.

“- and makes sure it’s all okay afterwards,” Newt continues, ignoring that. “He’d swoop in here, take one look at you and go into full caretaker mode.”

Tendo raises an eyebrow. “This I’ve gotta see.”

Newt grins and grabs the passkey again. “Can do.”

***

He returns ten minutes later with Hermann who swoops in, takes one look at Tendo and goes into full caretaker mode. “Well that’s just ridiculous,” he says as he activates the extra cold packs he’s brought with him and hands them to Tendo. “Why would anybody believe that  _you_ deserved  _this_?”

And while Tendo’s trying to catch up with that, he’s hit with a barrage of questions. Within a minute the kettle is boiling, the heat’s been adjusted and Newt’s on his way down the hall to fetch more pillows while Hermann does a  _proper_ check for concussion. 

Tendo’s definitely in safe hands now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I have nothing better to do with my life than find different ways to make Tendo suffer. My poor darling. 
> 
> Title from "You Gotta Be".


End file.
